BJP leader Nand Kishore Garg has urged the top court for an urgent hearing, considering the difficulty faced by residents due to the nearly-two-month-long protest on a road connecting Delhi and Noida. Also, various other arterial roads of Delhi have been facing traffic congestion due the protest.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court asked a Delhi BJP leader today to approach its mentioning officer to get an early date for hearing of his plea seeking the removal of hundreds of anti-citizenship law protesters occupying a road-stretch in Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh area.

BJP leader Nand Kishore Garg has urged the top
court for an urgent hearing, considering the difficulty faced by
residents due to the nearly-two-month-long protest on a road connecting
Delhi and Noida. Also, various other arterial roads of Delhi have been
facing traffic congestion due the protest.

Restrictions have been
imposed on the Kalindi Kunj-Shaheen Bagh stretch and Okhla underpass
since December 15, when hundreds of women sat on a protest against the
amended law.

Saying
that the law-enforcement machinery has been “held hostage to the whims
and fancies of the protesters,” the plea has sought laying down of
guidelines for protests leading to obstruction of public place.

“It
is disappointing that the state machinery is muted and silent spectator
at hooliganism and vandalism of the protesters who are threatening the
existential efficacy of the democracy and the rule of law and had
already taken the law-and-order situation in their own hand,” said the
plea.

It said the Shaheen Bagh
protest is “undoubtedly within the constitutional parameter” but it has
lost its legality as constitutional protections were being “blatantly
and brazenly flouted and violated.”

The State has a duty to
protect the fundamental rights of its citizens, who have been facing
trouble due to the road blockade, it said.

“Hence, it is urgently
required that the public places must not be allowed to be abused and
misused for ulterior and mala fide purposes such as staging protest
against the constitution amendment in the heart of the capital city and
thereby causing incalculable hardships and difficulties to the common
people,” it said.

It said a similar plea was filed by another
litigant in the Delhi High Court, which on January 14 directed the local
authority to deal with the situation. The litigant has filed an appeal
in the top court against the high court order and sought supervision of
the situation in Shaheen Bagh by a retired Supreme Court judge or a
sitting judge of the Delhi High Court.